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With Raptors in East mix, Masai Ujiri faces tough personnel choices

Should general manager go all in and upgrade roster with a major trade, or stay the course and maintain the growth plan he's always preached?

General manager Masai Ujiri says he believes the slumping Raptors will eventually turn its fortunes around. “It’s a long season and every team is going to go through tough stretches where you are not playing so well," he said. "We had a rough patch but I think the guys fully understand the task ahead.”
(Steve Russell / Toronto Star file photo)

MEMPHIS—Masai Ujiri will not rush headlong into rash decisions because it is not his style nor in his long-term best interest but he realizes the unique nature of the NBA today.

With his Raptors at the halfway point of the regular season — 27-14 after a win in Milwaukee on Monday and starting the second half here Wednesday night — opportunity abounds.

It could be shaping up as some kind of magical season in a muddled Eastern Conference and a league without a proven, dominant team and Ujiri admits it a factor in how he’s approaching the second half of the year.

“We won’t kill our future for immediate success but understand where we are and the nature of the league at this point,” the general manager said.

The nature of the league, and the Raptors, is as it’s seldom been in recent years. With the 27-14 record, Toronto is comfortably in command of the Atlantic Division — 10 games ahead of second-place Brooklyn — and fighting Washington and Chicago for second place in the Eastern Conference. None of those teams have been dominant, conference-leading Atlanta is on an otherworldly roll that may not be sustainable and the East has never been more wide open.

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“Let’s not be satisfied with just winning the division,” coach Dwane Casey said of his approach to the second half. “Let’s fight, scratch and claw and just get better.”

The trouble is that as good as Toronto has been at times this season, the halfway mark arrives with the team scuffling as it never has. Monday’s win in Milwaukee was just Toronto’s third in 10 games; the abundant confidence and promise of the first 30 games is gone.

“I think in the beginning of the season if we would have said we would be 27-14 at the halfway mark we would take it,” said Ujiri. “It’s a long season and every team is going to go through tough stretches where you are not playing so well. We had a rough patch but I think the guys fully understand the task ahead.”

But what is the general manager’s task?

Is it to try and hit a home run in half a season left in a wide-open conference or to maintain the consistent growth plan he’s long advocated?

Approaching the Feb. 19 trade deadline, Ujiri does have options. He has expiring contracts worth about $27 million he could deal and an extra future draft pick obtained from the New York Knicks in the Andrea Bargnani trade. The question is does he want to spend his 2015 summer free agent money in February in a trade or wait until a larger group of players is available in the summer?

Ujiri is loathe to take on long-term contracts, though, so it’s unlikely he’d add significant salary past the 2015-16 season for a couple of reasons.

He has to figure out what, or if, to do with some current players, Amir Johnson will be an unrestricted free agent this summer and Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross are up for contract extensions. Locking into a player now who would limit what he can do this summer or when a great class of free agents is available in 2016 is not something he’s interested in.

“Coach Casey has done an excellent job, we are building a program based on talent, character and work ethic, playing hard and competing,” he said. “We are going to have the right occasional bad games and our young players are going to be up and down. We understand it’s a process and we are a growing team.”

The simple solution would be for the current group to play better, or at least to the level it showed in the first six weeks of the season.

The schedule isn’t easy — the Raptors have 18 home games and 23 road games left, 17 against Eastern Conference teams and 24 against teams from the West — but with DeMar DeRozan coming back after missing a quarter of the season and Kyle Lowry likely to be chosen to the all-star game, the pieces might already be in place.

The Raptors could use some frontcourt depth and a solid defensive wing but this group has proven capable. They are among the league leaders offensively and in the bottom third defensively, a stark contrast to what Casey’s coaching priorities are. But they are also a cohesive unit that’s been through a difficult playoff series together and tinkering with that could be dangerous.

“I think with DeMar getting hurt, the guys and Kyle did a great job,” said Ujiri. “I think Kyle carried us and has some fatigue he will overcome and then we have to adjust to DeMar back in the line up and it will take time for him to get back fully.”

Until then, the general manager will have to figure out what he wants the second half of the season to look like.

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